


Traveling Blues

by tptigger



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/pseuds/tptigger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah and Troy go to a lecture given by astronomer Justin Stewart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traveling Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



> Many thanks to Rivulet027 for the beta.

Noah followed the others into Ernie's. The smell of chocolate and freshly shredded coconut wafted into his nose. Orion stood behind the counter, rubbing a half circle of coconut up and down a grater, the shavings falling to the counter. Gia bounced up to the bar, Emma at her heels.

"How's work going?" Emma asked.

"Pretty well," Orion said. "Ernie gave me a bunch of paperwork to fill out. What's a social security number?"

Ernie looked over at him, frowning. "Never mind, man, I can keep giving you cash while you figure things out."

Orion raised an eyebrow.

Emma and Gia exchanged glances.

Orion wrinkled his nose. "What..."

"We'll explain later," Gia said.

Emma frowned. 

Noah hadn't thought of that: Orion didn't have any paperwork, no identity, no legal proof of any kind. That wasn't good. It wasn't like they could just go up to NASADA and ask them for alien immigration papers. All the other aliens that had come to Earth were evil and trying to destroy the place. What would they do with Orion?

Given what was currently going on in Congress, probably lock him up and then stick him wherever they hid immigrants who hadn't shown up legally, but couldn't be sent home for whatever reason.

Noah hopped up onto one of the stools next to Gia, ignoring the glare from Jake who sat on his other side. Troy sat on the other end of the bar, next to Emma, toying with a newspaper that someone had left there.

"Oh, man, not this guy," Troy groaned, pushing the paper away from him.

Orion slipped out of the clear gloves he was wearing. "That's for Noah." He took the newspaper from a glaring Troy and handed it to Noah. "Isn't this the astronomer you were telling me about the other day?"

Noah leapt to his feet. "Justin Stewart is coming to town!"

"Who?"

"He was this promising martial artist who gave it all up to go into science," Troy said, frustration in his tone.

"He's an astronomer!" Noah said. "He listens to radio waves from other galaxies--a lot of compositions of stars and things, but he's also been making a lot of headway in monitoring other forms of radiation. It does a lot for conventional research--more information about distant planets, and he's discovered a couple in the Goldilocks zone, but he also has written several blog posts about how radio waves aren't the best way to search for friendly aliens and monitor for extraterrestrial threats. He'd been warning people that there was something unusual going on before Vrak showed up."

"So he left being one of the best martial artists on the West Coast to become a crackpot scientist," Troy said grumpily. "Great."

"He's not a crackpot. He didn't say that they were aliens, he said he was seeing several frequencies that had unusual activity," Noah said. "I asked Gosei: those are the frequencies that the fleet use."

"Is he seeing more?" Troy asked.

"I don't know," Noah said. "We could ask him, he's giving a lecture tomorrow night."

"You have fun with that," Jake said.

"Come on, Jake," Noah said. "It'll be fun."

"What are you going to do?" Jake asked. "Go up and say 'hi, we're the..'" He trailed off, looked around, and lowered his voice, "'we're the Power Rangers, does the the fleet have more reinforcements coming?'"

Noah rolled his eyes.

"Butterflies are cooler," Emma said, giving Jake a frosty look.

"I promised Emma I'd go with her," Gia said, "and I _keep_ my promises." She tossed a glare at Jake.

"I learned my lesson," Jake said, "notice how I didn't say that I was going to go."

Noah looked at Orion.

Orion put his gloves back on and picked up the hunk of coconut. "I think I'm working."

"I don't think we want Orion near any sort of scientist," Troy said. 

Orion blinked, staring at Troy. "Why?"

"They might want to lock you up and study you," Troy said.

"Haven't you seen E.T.?" Noah added.

Orion raised an eyebrow at him.

"No, wait, of course you haven't, you're from another planet," Noah said.

"I don't think showing him that one is a good idea," Emma said.

"I don't need to be protected from every little thing, Emma," Orion said.

"Maybe you should watch it with Jake while I go to the astronomy lecture with Noah," Troy suggested.

"I thought you didn't like the guy," Noah said.

"Yeah, I don't, but I think there should be more than one of us going, and I'm not sure I trust Jake to keep promises right now," Troy said.

"I said..."

"Show Orion E.T. and we'll talk."

"Hey, Noah, can we borrow your DVD?"

"Sure," Noah said.

"Ok, so what time should we meet for the lecture?" Troy asked.

Orion finished grating the coconut. "Hey are you guys hungry?"

The others chirped their fro-yo orders at him.

* * *

Troy shifted nervously as they waited in line to go to the lecture hall. An usher took their tickets and handed them each a yellow sheet with the program for the evening.

"Thank you," Noah said.

Troy worried the program between his hands as he followed Noah into the classroom. The entrance was on the top, and the seats were in a half circle bowl that slanted down. On the stage there was a large screen behind a podium.

"No telescopes?" Troy asked as he followed Noah to a seat in the middle of the center section of seats.

"Radio telescope arrays are the size of this room," Noah said. "And those are the small ones."

"Oh," Troy said. "This is going to be really boring isn't it?"

"Astronomy's fascinating, Troy."

"Except for the part where the aliens come to kill us all," Troy said.

"Here here," said a man in the row ahead of them. "This boy is listening to microwaves or whatever from outer space when he should be developing weapons to kill everything out there."

"The Power Rangers are doing a great job on that front," Troy said.

The man snorted. "Have you seen them? Half of the city gets flattened in the process, and they keep deploying new weapons at every battle. If they've had all of these weapons all along, why aren't they using them to begin with?"

Troy moved forward, but Noah held an arm across his chest. "Don't. He's not worth it."

"You know him?"

"He's... ignore him and hope he goes away," Noah said. "That's the best you can do."

"Okay," Troy said dubiously.

"What's the matter, Noah, don't like to hear the truth?" the man said.

"Let's just move," Noah said, grabbing Troy by the collar and dragging him over to one of the side sections.

"Really, who is that guy?"

"He likes to come to the crypto-science group that Mr. Hurley introduced me to and cause trouble sometimes," Noah said. "If you talk to him, he gets really annoying. If you ignore him, eventually he gets annoyed and just leaves."

"Gotcha," Troy said.

One of the professors from the local university got up and approached the podium.

"Hello, and welcome to both our students and members of the community that have joined us this evening. Our speaker, Justin Stewart, is a renowned astronomer in the field of aerospace radiation. He started Angel Grove High School at the age of twelve and earned his high school diploma from Beacon Hills High School in 2000 at the age of 15. He went to the University of California Sunnydale and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Astronomy in at the end of the winter quarter in 2003, leaving the town shortly before its collapse. He got his PhD from Mariner Bay University in 2008 and has just finished his post doctoral research at University of Arizona, using the Very Large Array to monitor change in radiation in local space versus distant space. He has also been correlating fluctuations in historical data relative to alien incursions in towns that have been defended by Power Rangers. Most of the world would tell you that these were alleged incursions, but given local events, I think most people here would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."

There was a low mutter of chuckles as a man with short dark hair, a beard, and tattoos that peeked out of the collar of his dress shirt.

"That's Justin Stewart?" Noah asked.

"Not really what you'd peg for a scientist, is he?" Troy whispered. "He's also a third degree black belt in at least two martial arts styles."

"Thank you, Professor Nakumura for that wonderful introduction. I just want to add that I'm from Angel Grove, so if you tell me you've seen the Power Rangers, I will believe you.

"But I'm not here to talk about my extracurricular research so much as my readings of radio waves and their correlations to other forms of radiation in space..."

* * *

"So do we ask at the question and answer session or try to talk to him at the reception?" Troy whispered.

"Reception," Noah whispered back. "He wants to be taken seriously and a lot of people don't take aliens seriously, even in the face of knowing they exist."

"Are all scientists like Mr. Burley 'cause that would explain..."

"He'll be more amenable to talking to us about it if it's not in front of the entire crowd."

Troy nodded, and didn't want to point out that they would still have to get him away from some of the more serious academics before they could ask their questions.

* * *

Troy should've let Noah drag him to more academic lectures more often. The cookies were pretty good, and they had a nice spread of fruits and vegetables. And soda. He was sipping a Diet Coke next to Noah, who was chatting with one of the professors about entry requirements for the University science department. (The professor in question was on the admissions committee and apparently chomping at the bit to recruit high school students who came to academic lectures voluntarily.)

Troy was debating the relative merits of trying to rescue Noah from the clutches of the very excited professor and trying to get into the crowd currently surrounding Dr. Stewart. However, Dr. Stewart laid eyes on them and then politely excused himself.

"Nice to see some kids after my own heart," he said, coming over. "I'm Justin Stewart."

"Noah Carver."

"They're still in high school, but please don't let that stop you from encouraging them," the professor said. "If you'll excuse me." With that he wandered off.

"I've been following your blog since I was twelve," Noah blurted, "it's an honor to meet you."

A hint of red creeped into Dr. Stewart's neck. "Thank you. What's your favorite thing about my blog?"

"Your studies of radiological changes in space compared to attacks," Noah said. "I was wondering if you'd been noticing more changes in radiological emissions lately? These aliens might be getting reinforcements." 

"Don't worry, I'm sure the Power Rangers have everything under control. When I was young, they always managed to find a way, even if it meant finding new powers. One time..."

Chirrup. Noah winced. Of all the timing.

Dr. Stewart's eyebrows shot up. "Ah, I see. I'll be in town until tomorrow. I can meet you around 10."

"Ernie's Brain Freeze at the mall," Noah said.

"See you then," Dr. Stewart said. "May the Power protect you."

Noah and Troy's eyes widened, then Troy nodded curtly and they raced out.

"You weren't supposed to scare them off," Noah heard the professor who was trying to recruit him say to Dr. Stewart.

"Those kids won't scare easily."

Troy and Noah exchanged glances, then Troy pointed to an out of the way nook with phones. Noah nodded, they slipped inside, checked the way was clear, and then teleported and morphed.

* * *

The next morning, Troy and Noah sat at one of the tables in Ernie's Brain Freeze. Jake, Emma, and Gia sat at the table close to where Orion was chopping nuts. They wanted the whole team handy in case something major went down, they figured that Dr. Stewart just knew a morpher when he heard it, just like Casey had--the question was whether or not it was for the same reason, or if he was some kind of villain or maybe a stalker? They didn't know, Gosei was being cryptic, and Tensou was bouncing around excitedly, but not really saying anything.

Dr. Stewart entered Ernie's Brain Freeze at precisely ten minutes after ten, his eyes scoping the length of the room.

Noah got up. "Dr. Stewart."

He smiled, having a seat. "Brought back-up I see."

Troy narrowed his eyes. "Beg your pardon?"

"You're wearing red again, your friend's wearing blue, and over there I see Pink, Yellow, and did anyone explain to Green about Color Withdrawal?"

"He has green boxers," Noah blurted. "He's kind of had to as he's sort of both colors. We've never gotten a straight answer out of Gosei about how that works."

Troy kicked Noah under the table.

Noah glared. "Who else would know about Color Withdrawal?"

Dr. Stewart flashed a grin. "Should we start over? I'm Justin Stewart, the Blue Turbo Ranger."

"Troy Burrows, Red Megaforce Ranger."

"Noah Carver, Megaforce Blue."

"Gia Moran, MegaForce Yellow." Gia joined them, Emma and Jake at her heels.

"Emma Goodall, MegaForce Pink."

"Jake Holland, MegaForce Black, until we hit UltraMode, then I'm green."

"That's got to make clothes shopping awkward," Justin said.

"You have no idea," Jake said.

"So you want to ask me your question from last night without all the subterfuge?"

"Were we that transparent?"

"Until your morphers went off, no. I thought you were just enthusiastic and a little scared."

"Sounds about right," Noah said, squirming a little uncomfortably.

"If you weren't a little scared, I'd be worried," Justin said. "Half of the time that I was a Ranger I was scared out of my wits, but you trust your team, you trust your mentor, and you keep going."

"The fleet's been throwing a lot at us, we were wondering if you'd seen any changes that suggests that more ships are on the way?"

"The communications are all over the place since the first wave arrived," Justin replied. "I can't intercept them, so I don't know anything like range or distance--we don't have good monitoring systems for that, and with the cuts to NASADA's budget lately, we can't really get any deep space funding. I've put through a request to Terra Venture, but their scientific department is pretty backed up too. Even through less official channels."

"Less official channels?" Emma echoed.

"The Pink Lost Galaxy Ranger--well one of the Pink Lost Galaxy Rangers, is the sister of the Red Space Ranger--and the rest of the Space team were Turbo Rangers first."

"Brother's uncle's cousin's former roommate?" Jake joked.

"Teammate's teammate's sister, weren't you paying attention?" Orion asked, coming over.

"Um..."

"This is Orion, he's MegaForce Silver," Emma explained.

"Who needs to watch Spaceballs, stat," Jake said.

"Is it as scary as ET?" Orion asked.

"ET was scary?" Justin asked.

"Do you treat all aliens that way on your planet?" Orion pulled up an extra chair and sat next to Emma.

"Only the ones who try to destroy our cities," Justin said. "The others get to help NASADA try to explore new worlds and then not tell anyone about them. I know my research is valid, but I can't prove it because all of the good evidence is classified."

"There are good aliens?" Noah asked. "Other than Orion I mean?"

Orion stared. "My entire planet."

"Yeah, look what happened to that," Noah pointed out.

Emma smacked him. "Noah!"

Orion frowned.

"And it's official, we're putting you in touch with Andros," Justin said. He handed Orion his phone. "Put your contact information in there."

Orion looked at him blankly.

Gia took it gently. "He doesn't have a phone, he has a morpher. I'll give you my info."

"You should all put your info in there," Justin said. "This year's planning committee will pitch fits if I don't get them the info they need to invite you to the beach party."

"Beach party?" Noah asked, blinking.

"Beach party," Justin confirmed. "Carter and Wes decided it would be good for everyone to meet everyone else's team after the Moon Mission twelve years ago, and it's been an annual thing ever since."

"A beach party?" Troy asked, accepting the phone from Gia. "For Power Rangers?"

"Yeah, why?" Justin asked.

"Does it involve everyone morphing?" Troy asked.

"No," Justin said. "That would be a spectacle liable to attract more attention than we'd want. Why?"

Troy shrugged. "No reason."

"I should get back to work," Orion said, getting up.

Justin cocked his head at Orion. "How do you have a job here?"

Orion wrinkled his nose. "Ernie gave me one."

"Ernie's kind of playing fast and loose with the paperwork," Emma said. "Any chance you can help Orion get some kind of official status?"

Justin accepted his phone back from Jake and checked his watch. "Good enough." He moved his finger over the touch screen, then held the phone to his ear. "Andros?...Yeah, man, I know I'm a little early for you, but I'm in Harwood today and...Yes, exactly. My new friend who wears a lot of silver needs some immigration help. Originally?" Justin paused, looking at Orion. "You want to just talk to him? He's right here." Justin handed Orion the phone.

"Hello?" Orion looked puzzled, and Noah realized that none of them had ever shown Orion how to use a phone before. "I was born on Andresia and it was destroyed by the fleet...Yes, I suppose you could say that....No, I honestly haven't thought that far, I just don't want any more planets to fall to the Empire...Um, I'm sorry?...Oh, OK, if you say so...I'm working at a fro-yo shop....You can? Great...No, in the school....They haven't asked...Um, we have both, actually...Um, OK." Orion handed the phone to Emma, resting his hands on the table.

"Hello?" Color drained from Emma's face. She reached up and smacked Orion upside the head. "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL US THAT YOU WERE LIVING IN THE SCHOOL?"

Troy jumped and Jake gaped.

"We thought you were living in your spaceship!" Noah shouted, his face turning somewhat red.

"It's not equipped for life support if it's not actually going anywhere." Orion stared at his hands.

Gia got up and circled the table, then also hit Orion over the head. "You're an idiot. You should have said something."

"I didn't want to be any trouble," Orion said.

"For starters, we're moving you into the Command Center with Gosei," Troy said. "This way at least someone can keep an eye on you."

"For starters?" Orion said.

"I think we can find you a room for rent," Emma said.

"Or an apartment," Noah added.

"On minimum wage?" Justin said, "not likely. A room for rent won't be too hard, just make sure Andros gets you an ID that says you're 18."

"There should be plenty of cheap places near the university," Troy said.

Emma handed Justin his phone back.

"Hey Andros do you still have eardrums?" Justin chuckled at the response. "Of course you did. I should've realized...No, the tour's going well, I even had some enthusiastic high school students at the lecture last night...Yeah, both of them...Dude, it totally counts. No, I haven't been hanging out with Dustin too much. Talk to you soon, tell Ashley I said 'hi' and that I haven't crashed my car or anything...Because I'm not twelve anymore and she's not...Don't you dare tell Katherine! OK, fine, just tell Ashley I said hi then. Bye." Justin touched his phone to hang up. "What are you staring at?"

"That sounds kind of like Troy talking to his stepfather," Noah said.

Justin sighed. "The rest of my team was quite a bit older than me when we were Rangers, and my dad was going through a rough time and lost custody of me for awhile. They tend to get a little overprotective."

"And Katherine?"

"Most of the Rangers were just graduating high school when I joined the team," Justin said. "They had to give up their powers so that they could go off to college, so they passed them on to other people. I have two teams, and in some ways they're equally overprotective."

Troy raised an eyebrow.

"I'm guessing that Orion wasn't at the lecture yesterday, despite probably knowing more about the subject than any of you because you were afraid he'd do something so obviously alien that one of the people at the lecture would recognize what he was, right?"

"They made me watch E.T. instead because they were afraid that was what was going to happen to me," Orion said.

"Right, so take those protective instincts for your teammate, and then make them physically smaller and weaker than you when unmorphed," Justin said. "And a little unpredictable. That was me when we were originally rangers."

"Are we going to having phone conversations like that in twenty years?" Noah asked.

"It's only been about seventeen for me, and honestly my team is especially overprotective, but this one time Kelsey from Lightspeed went mountain climbing somewhere where there wasn't cell phone reception, and her entire team freaked out and was calling everyone. That was twelve years ago and they're still giving her grief for it. I don't know how many of you were born into families with siblings, but like it or not, you have five more now."

Jake shifted uncomfortably. Gia glared at him. Justin raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. His cell phone chirped.

"Drat," he said. "That's our five minute warning. Any other things I can clear up for you guys?"

"Does it get easier?" Troy asked. "Having the whole world on your shoulders?"

Justin frowned. "I might email you some Reds' contact information, but remember, Troy, you don't have the whole world on your shoulders. Just one sixth of it." He grabbed a napkin, and scribbled a number on it. "If you get into a real bind before I get back in touch, call this number, tell whoever answers that the password is Zordon and that Justin sent you. They'll help. Don't put that in your phone contacts, it's top secret."

"Thanks," Troy said, picking up the napkin.

"Take care, kids," Justin said, walking out.

Orion sighed. "I'm not a kid. On my planet, I've been of age for four years."

"None of us are really kids anymore," Troy said, "but I bet we look like it to him."

"He said we'd be hard to scare off though," Noah said, "but I'm scared all the time."

"Me too," Orion omitted.

Emma raised her hand. "Me too."

Jake tentatively raised a hand, but didn't say anything. Gia followed him.

"Guess it's unanimous," Troy said.

"You're not our fearless leader?" Jake said.

"Have you ever read Animorphs?" Troy asked.

"I love those books," Jake said.

"Yeah, well, I'm Jake, you're Marco..." Troy said.

"Orion's Ax," Jake added. "Clearly Gia is Rachel and Emma is Cassie, but I'm not so sure that Noah would make a good Tobias."

"I'm not a hawk," Noah replied.

"Like I said," Jake said.

"I don't chop things down!" Orion said.

"Not that kind of ax," Emma said. "It's a nickname for Aximili... Axmili... Ugh, what's the rest of it?"

Noah pulled out his phone. "So do we trust Wikipedia or do we go to Wikia?"

"I say we make him read the books," Gia said.

"Are they better than E.T.?" Orion asked.

"You know, we might want to have a Star Trek marathon," Noah said. "We might be giving Orion the wrong idea otherwise."

"Space Trek?" Orion said.

"Star Trek," Noah corrected sharply.

"Down boy," Troy said, "he's literally from another planet."

"I really don't understand Earth sometimes," Orion said. "Why do I need paperwork to be allowed to work, anyway?"

Troy shrugged. "Don't worry, we'll help you figure it out."


End file.
